Samba!

Something a little more fun for a change. =) Today there was a Samba Carnaval here in Lahti, my hometown. And a few of my friends were dancing there, so of course I had to grab my camera and go and take some photos (some: 360 to be exact XD). Here are some, for your viewing pleasure. ^_^

Nostalgic

Wine and Friday! Oh my this brings back memories! Ahahahahahahaaa! It's been a while since I did this, drink by myself on Friday night and share my thoughts here... well, on another blog, but whatever, same place, almost. =P

But back then I was single and much more confident. This has been a day of reflecting. My Viking wrote to his Facebook page that he's in a con that's only about 100 kilometers from here. And at the same time he's been telling to me for a month that he cannot afford to visit me during the summer. =(

Which kind of proves to me that he doesn't really want to see me as much as I want to see him. He sends his kisses and all, but I haven't seen him in over a month, and the last time I saw him in the middle June, it was for one night and he was gone again.

We've been together for more than a year and I still haven't met any of his friends, his parents or anyone... I haven't even seen his place for gods sake. We never go out, see other people, he doesn't want to meet my family... Fuck, this isn't good. I've known this for a long while, but today it hit me full force. I'ts very very very possible I will not be able to be with him. I cannot live like this, like a dirty little secret, in hiding, not seeing anyone... not even him.

I am fucking lonely!!! I cried all day today,  mostly because I was so angry. And if I think about this with my brains, I would not be with him anymore. But I freaking love him. I can't help it. And as much as I've always thought that love conquers all, it might not, not this time... not when our points of view about this relationship are so different. We're not jealous, neither of us, I really love that about him, but I want him more than he obviously wants me. I am ready to make a commitment to him and I don't think he's ready for that. And I don't know if I can be without one... This sucks so fucking badly!

But tonight I try to forget my sorrows and drink. Red wine, my favourite, tomorrow my head will hurt, but I don't care, it's the price of forgetting.

Oh and I've been drawing! Wanna see something new? Here's something:

Sajore, my vampire. Drawn with pencil.

Shaya, Sajore's sister, also a vampire, drawn with pencil.

Tan

I've been trying to get some sort of a tan this summer. Not because of the colour, but because I wouldn't get so easily burned when I have to stay under the sun for a longer time. I've managed to burn myself twice.XD

I have tan lines, so I have a little tan. When I'm by myself and look into a mirror, I can even see that yes, my skin is tanned. But when I'm around other people, I am white as a paper. I am so pale that compared to anyone, I am whiter. Ugh! I would at least like to look healthy, but I just look pale. Oh well, that's my natural complexion so I guess I can't help it. And I don't want to burn again. =P

My blood pressure has been giving me issues and last week I visited a doctor about it. He didn't order me to eat blood-pressure-meds, but said that I need to drop 10 kilograms from my weight. It's true that I've gained weight this year and I am not happy about it, at all. But losing such a big amount of weight is making me helluva-stressed. So I am trying to eat healthily and started to move more again. I want to start swimming, it used to be my favourite thing to do and I know I'd still love it if I only got myself into the water. =P

So... that's my goal this next month: To drop weight, to exercise more and to eat healthily. ^_^ Hopefully it will make me feel better in other ways too. Oh and I started a super-vitamin-boost too, lots of omega-3, magnesium and d-vitamin! =D

Crocheting

I promised to make my brother some new woolen socks, but it's too hot to knit anything woolen. Your hands get too sweaty and the wool itches. Ick. And it's too hot to sit in front of the sewing machine, in general I have very little patience when sewing and the heat doesn't help... though I want to make a few dresses and shirts. ^_^

So I've been crocheting. First I made this pink bunny for my stepsisters daughter and the other one, the fox, for my friend Umi's 19th birthday present. They both liked them. Perhaps I'll make more, these are fun presents to give. =D What next, a dragon? Alien? Transformer? Harry Potter? Haha. XD

This is the pattern I used for both of them, a little changed in both. I fixed the feet and the fox has different tail, ears and nose.
And for the finnish readers, there's a translated version here.

Reminiscence

This post might seem a little angsty, but it's not. I don't think about these things a lot anymore, but after seeing a career Councillor yesterday and sharing about my whole life/past/childhood/youth and then spending the rest of the day with mom, aunt and step-dad, these things have been on my mind. And I feel like I need to write this down. =D

I was about 13, when my mom met this man, a doctor, a respectable guy. They started dating, seeing each other and finally the guy moved in to our house. At first everything went fine, but then he cave in: he had been an alcoholic for years, but had not drank for along time. But suddenly he was always coming home drunk, went to a bar with mom, spent the whole night there and came home completely out of it.

He walked to the wrong house and fell asleep on the couch there, fell down the stairs and almost set the house on fire lighting a cigarette. He smoked them inside, I hated it, the smell was horrid. And he yelled. He yelled a lot, every night, all night, until 3-4 am. He called my mom and me horrible names and yelled so hard the whole house echoed. Then he became violent. He beat my mom up, slapped her, she came home with a bloodied nose, crying, unable to explain what had happened. I was only 14.

When I came back from my confirmation camp (at the age of 14), my bed was full of shards of glass. I never found out what exactly had happened. Once my mom came running to my room to hide from the man and I tried to lock the door with a belt. He broke it and burst in. I was so afraid I had a panic attack and ran to him, clawing and screaming and he ran away.

After that my real dad got me a real lock on to my door. And more often than not, mom came knocking on the door in the middle of the night in a panic to get away from the man, to escape from him into my room. I got so afraid of the mere sound of his yelling, that I hid into my closet and slept there for the night. Sometimes  I escaped to go to my brothers house who lived next door. When he found out (eventually) what was happening at our house, he said that I was always welcome to stay at his house, even in the middle of the night. That happened, a lot.

But I wanted to stay home. And I fought my step-dad. Rarely physically, once I bit him on the arm when he was about to attack me, being dead-drunk. Usually it was enough that I dared to face him and scream back, he didn't dare to do anything... he knew he would have to face my real dad if he ever hurt me. Once my real dad came to get me in the middle of the night when the yelling and name-calling just wouldn't stop. My step-dad, drunk as a pig, attacked my dad, and my dad (an ex-boxer) hit him once as self defense, in the middle of the ribs. And broke one. HAHA! XD After that my step-dad was so afraid of my dad that he was not allowed to come to my house anymore.

And he was afraid of me too, because he knew that if he did something horrible, my dad would find out. He added my dad's name to the things he was yelling. It was insane, nothing he yelled made sense.
"He will come and beat me again! He will come and beat me! And you let him, *****!"
It was like that, with as loud volume as possible. Every night, even when I had school at 8 am, I had to stay up until 3-4 am listening to it.

So, my youth wasn't an easy one. But since mom was trying to keep this charade of things together, nobody on the outside knew what was happening, I had nobody to tell me what I should do. I grew up without rules. I could have so easily ended up in the wrong crowd and in a really bad way. But thank goodness I had friends with healthy homes, real parents who took care of them and who had rules. With them I didn't feel like breaking the rules. When I could have ran to the city to get drunk or worse, I hid into our sauna or garden and slept there. I started to make my own rules.

The worst year of my life was when I was 15 and on the tenth grade. It's an extra grade after elementary school, where you can lift your marks and aim higher, learn more of subjects that you haven't learned enough. The kids there are mostly trouble makers who don't know what they want or are not interested of anything. I very quickly became one of the kids the troublemakers liked to harass, being shy, quiet, with glasses and a little plump.

And so my days became hell. When I went to school they called me names and laughed at me every time I opened my mouth. And when I went home, my step-dad was there yelling, acting like a maniac. I could never lower my guard. But as horrible the year was, I learnt a lot, and grew a very thick skin! I refused to just give up so I started to loose weight, got new hobbies, learnt new things and became much more confident. I was a good dancer and an artist, I got better at those things and they gave me more confidence. When the kids at school called me names, I started to laugh back or whispered something to my friends and made them laugh. Eventually they stopped, when they realized it no longer affected me. And as my confidence and self-esteem grew, I could face my step-dad and not even say a word and he would back down.

He would still yell, but I yelled back. Or just walked into the room, stared at him and he stopped. I told him with a straight face that if I could get away with it, I would kill him gladly. He answered that he knew it. We made a sort of truce, since we still had to live under the same roof. My mom was in the middle of all this, but she stopped going to the bars with my step-dad as often as before, and started to live her own life again. It didn't stop the yelling or name calling, but it made it easier to take. On my 17th Christmas we were decorating the Christmas tree with mom, Christmas songs were playing in the background and my step-dad was screaming at us a few feet away, smoking a cigarette. I remember that I got really annoyed by the horrible smell.

You can get used to the most horrible things. When I knew my mom was not in danger or getting beat up, I could sleep calmly, though I still snapped awake as soon as I heard a yell from the other rooms. But it was already a norm...

I don't even remember how I survived the next three years, but I was 18 when I finally moved out. And I've never been as healthy in my life, I went to gym 3-4 times a week, danced and ate healthy. I started dating and went to clubs a lot with my friends. I studied hard and went to school every day, I was in senior high school then and no longer got teased by anyone. I wore nice clothes and dyed my hair back to blond (it had been red for years). The guys who teased me on tenth grade no longer even recognized me.

A week after my 18th birthday I started to look for an apartment and a month after that I moved away. I was finally free. I think all this made me much stronger. And able to avoid certain dangers. I learnt to set my own limits and keep them. Sure there are still things that make me flinch or panic, small gestures, yells, words, drunks at the town... But I can now say that my life is good. I know what it can be when it's truly bad. Life's still a struggle because of the depression, but I'm not afraid, I can be safe in my own house, I can enjoy life every day and sleep my nights without fear. =)

Animalistic

We went to Korkeasaari-Zoo with my dad, stepmom, stepsister, her daughter and my sisters two kids (9 & 11).  We left at 10 am and came back home at 7 pm, walking almost all day, when we were not sitting in the train (for 2 hours). Everything was perfect, except that I burned my shoulders and chest really badly, OUCH! I am red as a tomato, ow ow ow.

The last Harry Potter is in the movies. I screamed of joy when
I saw this! XD (helsinki railway station)

On our way to the zoo, which is in an island where you take a
boat to, we saw this weird peer-looking-boat-thingy that
some guys had made, they floated around in the sun. XD

Of course I had to take photos. The animals were so absolutely cool! There were a lot of people there with little kids, which made everything a little chaotic, but it was still really fun. =D

The to the animals, roarrr! ;P

A huuuuge tiger!

It looked so magnificent, walking around
and there was only a plexi-glass between us.
Woah ♥

Amur Leopard. It was about to walk away when it looked straight to us
and walked closer to pose. A wonderful, beautiful creature.

An eurasian Lynx. You can see these guys in the nature in Finland, but
rarely, because they avoid people. They are sooo beautiful! And look
at the size of those paws, powerful!

I love the ears of the Lynx, those little tufts of hair, so cute! ^_^

Red Panda, what an adorable thing, it became my instant favourite,
I've never seen one before. ^_^

An otter. Aaaaah, it was sooo cuuute, playing in the water
and jumping up and back to water and playing there, it was so
fast it was difficult to take a photo.

And then it suddenly came out of the water right in front of me and
stayed there until I got a really good series of photos. ^_^

LOL! What a shot, haha, a yawning Snowy Owl. Looks exactly like
Hedwig, doesn't it. ^__^

A real life Wolverine! These guys are small and fast and so ferocious
that even three time larger bears are afraid of them. 

How can such a dangerous creature look so sweet?

A Visent (European Bison), they were huuuuge and handsome. ^^

Sea Eagle. These guys were so huge and cool. Woah, when it
spread it's wings I was glad there was a cage between us. ;D

A brown bear. They looked very calm and playful and fortunately
we came to see them just at the feeding time. This one is eating someone's
leg. :P

And this one seems to be a vegetarian, it was eating a watermelon. XD

Me and the bear. =D

Mountain goat. Surprisingly big and beautifully snow white goat. ^_^

A camel, this was the one thing I was waiting for the most, I've never
seen a live camel before, and it was soo gorgeous! ^_^

To explain my addiction to camels: these animals can walk in a
desert with very little water or food, walking a 1000 kilometers
in two weeks. Amazing!

A lama! lamalamalamalamalamalamalama... =P

Peacocks were walking around free in the area, they were
very pretty and very very tame! ^^

A green short-noused vine snake, beauuuutiful! 

Dwarf Mongoose, they were watching a bird flying over them
and when it came closer, one of them gave a scream and they
all ran under a tree branch. Such organisation.

Not to mention how CUTE they were! ^__^

Yellow-banded poison arrow frog, a very beautiful but
extremely poisonous frog. ^_^

Ural own. It was so difficult to spot in the middle of trees
that we almost missed it, though here it looks so
handsome.

And there they were. There were a little more animals than just these photographed, but pictures taken inside or of the little animals far away were so shaky or bad that I don't want to show them. =P It was a fun fun trip! ^_^
Now to treat my burns. Ouch. XD